


Halcyon Days

by Bleed_Peroxide



Category: Banana Fish (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Road Trip, M/M, sad dads
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-04
Updated: 2018-11-04
Packaged: 2019-08-17 09:12:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16513478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bleed_Peroxide/pseuds/Bleed_Peroxide
Summary: "That summer, a special season. Chips and fries, banana, pecan, chocolate chip, cherry. Super-sized Coke. Wiping oily fingers off on our shirts. Swimming in the river in our clothes."Even if the reason for their departure was dire, something in Ash knew with certainty that this accidental reprieve would likely never come again. Responsibility be damned, he wanted to know what it felt like to just be a love-drunk teenager, wild and free.In other words: a purely indulgent Road Trip AU that lavishes details on the boys' and Sad Dads' trek from Cape Cod to Los Angeles. Small, non-spoiler nods to the manga, including Eiji's dialed-up sass.





	Halcyon Days

As much as he tended to shove memories of Cape Cod into the long-abandoned corners of his mind, they still found a way to crawl from the shadows the moment he lowered his guard. For years, he avoided the ocean as though it carried a plague - at times, it felt like merely breathing in the scent of brine invited the same contagion that Coach had tainted him with a decade before. 

He’d dreaded coming back to this place. When the smell of saltwater hit his nostrils, he was eight years old again and drowning in stained white sheets. The cawing of the seagulls was more like the predatory call of vultures, watching as _He_ cannibalized a boy’s soul before they could feast on the carcass left behind. How many hours had Ash spent staring at the cracked window like it were his salvation? He’d wondered if it were possible for his spirit to just drift away in the breeze, carried as easily as the sound of crashing waves. He’d think on the fairy tales Griffin told him, wondering if he could turn into sea foam and melt into the ocean. 

Yet when he had wandered near the coastline, making his final peace with this place…. the specter of that room remained safely tucked away. 

It startled him, how sweetly nostalgic the sound of the ocean waves were now - he didn’t detect the stench of fish like he typically did, but rather the perfume of sunscreen applied on sun-warmed skin. Perhaps it was a macabre sense of compassion from whatever powers that be, but it brought back recollections of his brother that he hadn’t had the luxury to examine in years. 

Snapshots of memory came flooding back, as though brushing away dust from an old photo album. 

His brother’s gentle, calloused hands adjusting his grip on the bat as they practiced during balmy summer afternoons. When the small boy was too tired to walk home afterward, Griffin would perch Ash on his broad shoulders, arms spread wide and making puttering engine sounds like a plane. He had laughed fondly at Ash’s insistence that he was gonna be a pilot, just like his brother. 

The two of them standing along the shore, watching a line of freshly hatched sea turtles shuffling into the waiting ocean. Ash had stared at them with wide-eyed wonder, wanting to pick one up to play with it. However, Griffin had pointed to the sign next to them - a hand reaching towards a turtle, with a red slash across the image - and whispered, “The baby turtles don’t want to be touched. It’s much better to cheer them on quietly and leave them be.” Seeing the logic of this, Ash had cupped his hands around his mouth and whisper-shouted words of encouragement. 

The pair idly sipping on hot chocolate as they sat on the sofa in front of the fireplace, reading a children’s book aloud. “I can read _without_ using my pointing finger,” Ash would brag with a self-satisfied smile. He often forgot that he’d already read it before, yet Griff always listened patiently and feigned surprise when they reached the ending.  

His brother had been a soft-spoken wordsmith and - from what snippets Max could bring himself to share - a warm friend during his lucid years. He’d apparently been an exemplary soldier, which was precisely why he had struggled so much. Unlike Ash, he couldn’t acclimate himself to violence.

Glancing at the small class ring nestled in his palm, the blonde couldn’t decided if he wanted to laugh or cry at the absurdity of it all. Griff deserved a funeral with a permanent grave, for his loved ones to bid him a proper farewell. Instead, his body was carelessly tossed into a pauper’s grave, nameless and forgotten so far as the city of New York was concerned.

 _It’s better this way_ , he repeated, over and over until it was the mantra that guided his steps along the shoreline. Better that his brother’s body be lost, that it remain hidden from some sick fuck ready to use him as a post-mortem guinea pig. The only evidence that his brother had ever lived were this class ring, and the woven shawl tucked into Ash’s bag back at the house - the same token of comfort Ash had provided years ago. It might as well have been a tarp for all that Griff seemed to notice, but all the same, Ash liked to pretend that his brother had liked it. The man always had a fondness for plaid. 

Though he had a nebulous belief in any kind of afterlife, he could understand why others did - the idea was soothing, a bedtime story you might tell an inconsolable child. And there was something in the way the breeze whispered along his skin that made him wonder if perhaps Griff had a peace in death that had been denied him in life; it felt so much like the way his brother would wipe the tears from his face when he’d been scared awake by a nightmare.

_I wish I could have brought you here again, rather than settling for whatever the hell I’m doing now._

He furiously blinked way the moisture in his eyes, refusing to further taint his memories of this place. He’d been lucky enough to make it this far remembering Griffin the way he’d _want_ to be remembered - he wasn’t going to desecrate the act with self-pity.

Brilliant jade eyes scoured the horizon, trying to think of a place to settle the last remnant of his brother’s life. He felt like making something truly grave-like felt ostentatious, and spit in the memory of the soul he was sending off…. but he was loathe to leave a memorial so subtle that he might never be able to find it again. ( _If I ever return here_ , he reminded himself.) 

He found his answer by nearly walking into the damn thing. 

As though from another lifetime, he saw a sign with a hand reaching a turtle. It was a bit different than he remembered - some of the paint chipped away with time, the edges speckled with rust - but he knows that _this_ is the sign like he knows his own name. Though he’s gained a few feet since the last time, he remembers the angle of the buoy in the distance, and the almost magical way the sunset painted the ocean in shades of coral and pink. 

Taking out his pocket knife, he crouched down and dug a small hole roughly six inches into the ground. As he worked, Ash couldn’t help but let out a self-deprecating snort. His brother had been done everything right by all accounts: graduated from a good, old-fashioned New England school, gone into the military to serve the country, aided in some so-called war on terror, fought for freedom, all that schlock… yet all it’d done in the end was render him a muttering vegetable, receiving the kind of final farewell one would expect of a child burying a dead goldfish. 

_I’m sorry this is such a sorry excuse for a funeral, but I’d like to think you’d understand why I can’t exactly do something nicer. I already told Eiji ‘n Shorter I needed some alone time to think, and I don’t need them getting Those Looks on their faces while I’m down here._

Ash paused mentally, realizing that Griffin wouldn’t know who the hell either of those two were. He wasn’t sure at that point if he was actually under the delusion that he’s reaching anyone, or merely talking to himself like a lunatic…. but the vice around his heart loosened slightly regardless. 

He could be forgiven for a few screws going loose given the past few weeks - hell, past few _years_ \- he’s had. Fuck it. 

_You would have liked Eiji. You’re alike in a lot of ways - he’s all softness and smiles, way too nice for his own good. That’s why it scares me, I think, to see him getting pulled into things like this; people like you two just weren’t made for blood and violence. Even with a gun in your hand, you couldn’t become the same kind of monster as me. It’s probably better that you never had to know how I paid your medical bills._

He examined the ring in his palm, memorizing the details of it one last time. 

It was decidedly less ornate than most would have picked for a class ring, but it was suited Griffin down to the last crevice - he was never one for gaudy displays. The band was made of gold, untarnished and perfect despite the length of time it’d been tucked away. Etched into the inner band were the word _Barnstable_ and four numbers - his high school and the year he’d graduated. The outside bore a simple four-leaf clover,  a quiet homage to the heritage peppered into their accents, and porcelain skin that always freckled rather than tanned. The stone was decidedly odd - pale green peridot. Ash had never been able to make sense of it, given that his brother’s birthday was in February.

Sentimental poet that Griffin had been, Ash knew that nothing in his decisions was done by mere chance. His brother had always assigned significance to the smallest things, so it’d make sense that he’d indulged such whims ordering an expensive trinket. Ash took out his phone, doing a quick search for “peridot” while skimming past ads for various jewelers. He tapped on a promising link on the screen that listed “symbolism” as a keyword - _definitely need help on that._

Despite his earlier promise not to shed tears, Ash felt the edges of his eyes burning. 

**_A delicately-colored stone that is often said to change its hue, peridot is the birthstone for the month of August. It is also the stone given to celebrate sixteen years of marriage. According to legend, if the gem is set into gold, it will become a talisman capable of dispelling night terrors and bad dreams. Traditionally, such talismans must be worn on the right arm to fully work._ **

Adding in his baby brother’s birthstone and crafting a talisman against night terror -  _Grff, you’re such a goddamn sap._

Another memory drifted up to the surface, perhaps slower to come given how closely it was tied to That Time that he kept locked away: awakening from another nightmare of a darkened room and putrid breath on his neck, Griffin cradling him to his chest while instructing the hyperventilating boy to mimic his measured breathing. Ash still remembered the forced detachment in Griffin’s eyes as he reined in his temper, letting his baby brother wet his shirt with snot and tears until he sobbed himself to sleep…. but the way his teeth audibly ground against one another did little to disguise his anger. While it should have scared Ash, seeing his brother with such a mask of bitter and helpless rage, he’d felt _relieved_. 

He’d wondered for some time if the police, if his father had been right: that somehow, at some point, he’d asked for it without realizing it, and therefore that… that he _deserved_ it. 

But Griffin would never lie. Griffin had said that it was okay to cry, that he was allowed to feel angry; he didn’t blame Ash for what Coach did. His words had been absolute: _You did absolutely nothing wrong, not once. It’s not your fault._ Griffin’s rage was the benevolent wrath of a guardian deity; the same fire that assured death and ruin to one man was the soothing warmth of the living room hearth, flames gently melting the claws of fear constricted around his throat. 

The…. well, _Coach_ had happened right before Griffin was deployed, and not for the first time, Ash was almost grateful that his brother was made to leave before he could vent his anger on their gossip-loving town. The way his jawline twitched at the sideways glances cast at Ash when they went to the store made it clear that he desperately wanted to. 

He recalls hearing him hissing out furious-sounding words at their father behind a wooden door. He hadn’t been able to make most of the conversation; all he knew that Griffin had been shipped out not long after and that Ash was to go live with a relative. 

“A talisman against nightmares, huh,” Ash murmured, nestling the ring gently into damp sand. “Guess they never warned you how to handle the man-made ones.” 

He took a fistful of dirt and packed it in, sealing the tiny hole. 

"Ironic that _you’d_ need a ward against nightmares more than me. At least I got to murder the bastard that gave me mine.”

Picking up a stray twig nearby, he broke it in half and arranged the pieces into a small cross-shape, tying them together with a piece of seagrass before nestling it into place. He had no false hopes that the shape elicited the divine protection of an uncaring god, but he could at least evoke _some_ traditional imagery in an otherwise atypical grave. 

His work completed, Ash sat with his back resting against the metal stake of that turtle sign, letting his gaze fall once more on the ocean. The sun was almost completely submerged into the inky horizon, but all the same, he couldn’t bring himself to leave just yet. 

It was strange, how reluctant he was to leave this spot - he’d been quietly dreading this moment ever since Max had announced his intentions to travel to his hometown. But he had to admit that he felt…. settled, somehow. While it was hardly the sending off he would have wanted, he knew deep down that it _had_ to be here. Tainted memories be damned, this was still the place they’d been born and raised - nowhere else would do. 

A soft rustling in the grass a few yards away broke his train of thought. 

His hand instinctively sought out the revolver tucked into his waistband, even as his eyes roved around quickly for the source of the noise. Had someone managed to sneak up on him while he’d been lost in his own head? The grass wasn’t exceptionally tall, so they had to be on their belly or crouching - both positions that didn’t lend themselves well to agility. Would he have time to-

Even as he started plotting out different plans of attack, a movement at the corner of his eye - the direction of the noise - shifted his focus to the immediate present. Ash aimed the barrel at the small, dark shape moving slowly towards the water, the darkness of dusk making it harder for him to pinpoint what it was. It was only after a few heartbeats of him squinting at the shape - _why did I leave my damn glasses on the night table_ \- that his brain finally deciphered it. 

It was a freshly hatched sea turtle, its tiny shell and limbs covered in a wet sheen. Though its movements were jerky and unpracticed, it shuffled towards the shoreline with such dogged determination that Ash couldn’t but smile. He was tempted to pick it up and move it to the edge of the water to make its journey easier…. but Griffin’s voice drifted back into his head again: _It’s much better to cheer them on and leave them be._

Feeling a bit foolish, Ash cupped a hand around his mouth and whispered, “You’re strong, you can make it! Go on, Skipper!” 

Ash blinked in surprise - the name had fallen from his lips before he’d even thought about it, yet he knew at once that it was a perfect choice. He swallowed around the sudden lump in his throat, grimacing at the way it made his words clatter awkwardly. Regardless, he cheered on little shelled Skipper’s progress until its silhouette seemed to melt into the ocean. 

_Eiji’s making me too damn soft. I swear, if my guys saw me like this…._

Even as he cringed at the idea, he knew it was a misplaced concern. It was only a year or so ago that his boys had fawned over an abandoned kitten they’d found in an alleyway. Kong had grown particularly attached to it, jumping at the chance to feed it formula through a syringe before he’d even changed out of blood-stained clothes or tended to his wounds. The little fuzzball had grown up to be an orange hellion named Cheddar that he kept at his sister’s place; he gloated like a proud papa that Cheddar was a grumpy bastard, scratching the shit out of everyone except the two of them.  

 _On second thought…. I think they’d understand_. 

He was sure someone with more sentimental inclinations could find comforting symbolism in a new life hatching at the memorial of another’s. Griffin would have probably written him a page or two waxing poetic about it. 

As it was, Ash simply felt something closer to gratitude. He couldn’t have asked for a more auspicious way to start their trek to the West Coast.

* * *

  
Like the soldier he once was, Max stood in front of the flatbed of their truck, phone at the ready as he improvised a last minute shopping list. Shorter and Eiji were crouched in the back, digging around the scattered backpacks and duffel bags as Max called out various items; Ash paced in small circles behind him, already going stir-crazy and trying to work off his mounting agitation. 

Ash bit his tongue and resisted the urge to ask Max snidely why it’d taken him driving blindly for _two hours_ to realize they didn’t have an actual travel plan. So here they were, parked in a gas station in the middle of Bumfuck Nowhere, Shunichi putzing around in the attached convenience store grabbing the boys soda and snacks. Ash suspected part of it was blatant avoidance - he’d taken one look at Ash’s face and whispered something to Eiji before making a beeline for the store. Eiji, for his part, had just replied in a low, soothing voice. While Ash hadn’t known what his words meant, the familiar reassurance in his tone required no translation. 

Eiji looked up as Max called out “toothpaste”, holding up a half-used tube of it and meeting Ash’s eyes. The moment the veteran glanced back down at his phone, likely to check it off, Eiji mouthed _be nice_ to Ash, giving him that adorable pout that always had a way of making Ash feel a twinge of guilt. 

Ash stuck out his tongue and stuck his middle finger up without any real venom. Eiji simply rolled his eyes and mouthed what suspiciously looked like _asshole,_ returning the gesture with a lazy twirl of the wrist before shifting his gaze back to their bags. 

Then again…. Max had also defended Ash’s honor in front of his old man, with far more ferocity than Ash anticipated from someone that he’d threatened to murder several times. Max had been the one to find him in the library, which in itself had surprised Ash that he’d bothered to go after him. He had wiped away the worst of the aftermath before half-carrying Ash to the prison clinic without saying a word, his tactful silence far kinder than false platitudes. Max had seen him in the same sorry state as his father so many years before... but at least _he_ had the decency not to call him a whore for being backed into a corner.  

 _He had a lot of shit dumped on him because of me,_ Ash mused, _between the prison and now all this. Probably needs something else to focus on._

“Shampoo? Soap?” 

“Check, and check,” Ash replied. “I have some in mine.” 

“Spare clothing? Underwear, jackets, pants-”

“I even packed my finest thong for the occasion,” Shorter piped up, wagging his eyebrows as he hefted up the luggage bag in his hand for emphasis. He glanced over the rim of his sunglasses at Ash and flashed him a wink. He’d likely picked up on the way Ash’s mood had clouded over in a heartbeat - ever since they'd met so many years ago, he'd had the unnerving ability to read Ash like a well-thumbed book.  

Eiji peered at said bag curiously before asking, “Finest? I put mine in there but did not realize we had to pack… _nice_ thongs.” 

Shorter let an undignified snort of a laugh, pointedly ignoring the blistering glare Ash shot at him. 

“Eiji, I’m shocked! Soooo…. is it black and lacy? Got a little red bow on the back?” 

Max had joined Ash in fixing Shorter with what he must have imagined to be a displeased look. However, one cheek was slightly more sunken than the other - Ash recognized it as the peculiar expression he had whenever he bit the inside of his cheek to keep from smiling or laughing. 

 _We’ll never finish if Shorter keeps baiting Eiji like this._ Jumping lightly onto the truck bed, Ash grabbed a few of the backpacks piled in the corner, moving them closer to the sunlight to make their search easier. Max gave Ash the smallest nod of approval at his cooperation, though his face remained deceptively neutral as he watched the exchange. 

Blinking, Eiji looked over at Ash quizzically and asked, “Should they? I did not think we needed something so fancy. It seems like a lot of work for lace or a bow. Sand might get into the cracks, and be harder to clean.”

Shorter covered his mouth and snickered, while poor Eiji’s face was a portrait of utter confusion - Ash could almost see the glowing question mark over the boy’s head. 

“Have I said something strange? At the beach, you wear thongs, and they get dirty with all the sand…” 

_Goddammit, Eiji, stop giving him ammunition._

By this point, Shorter was nearly sobbing with laughter. Ash had hoped Shorter would let the unfortunate wordplay slide, but of course, he wouldn’t have been Shorter fucking Wong if he didn’t give Eiji hell first: while he wasn’t _cruel_ , he took such delight in getting people flustered that Ash considered it a benign kind of sadism.

Ash swatted him on the shoulder before answering Eiji, barely able to keep the laughter out of his own voice, “He’s being a jackass ‘cause you’re using the wrong word. _Australians_ call them ‘thongs’; in the States, it’s called a ‘flip-flop’. A thong over here is….” 

He pulled out his phone out of his back pocket and did a quick image search for the item in question, shoving it under Eiji’s nose and letting it sink in for a few moments. 

“….basically underwear with dental floss.”  

Eiji’s cheeks flushed slightly, and he replied with a chagrined laugh, “No, no, no, I did not mean _that_ kind. Though I do not judge you if you enjoy wearing that kind of thing.” 

Shorter stuck his rear in the air - as much as the cramped space would allow, anyway - and swayed his hips tauntingly. 

“So what do you think? Do you think I’m more the lace type? Or would my ass look better with a bow, like the present that it is?” 

Amused by his own brilliance, Shorter missed the way the Japanese boy’s eyes glinted with mischief. 

Eiji was the picture of innocence, thoughtful finger tapping his chin with his head tilted like a puppy. But there was a sarcastic edge to his voice as he replied with a saccharine smile, “How does the American saying go? ‘Even if you put it in lipstick, a pig is still a pig’.”  

“You little-”

“Boys, _enough_ ,” Max interrupted, trying to imbue his words with an authoritative tone despite the ghost of amusement on his lips. “We’ve managed to put some distance between us and Cape Cod, but we still need to have more of a solid plan from here on out.” 

“Says you,” Ash replied with a smug smile. He leaned over the lip of the trunk and held up his phone in front of the veteran’s face. Max leaned forward and squinted at the map and route before him, looking through both with a fine-tooth comb for any oversights in Ash’s plans. 

Not that were any, Ash knew. 

Having read the itinerary with a critical eye, Max let out a low whistle, clearly impressed. “You really thought of everything, huh.” 

Of course, he had; he’d spent the better part of the drive comparing hotel prices and making online reservations to keep his mind from straying into places it didn’t need to. Ash tried not to contemplate on how the sizable wad of cash stashed in his bag was there because he no longer needed it for his brother’s medical expenses. Doctor Meredith might be one of his more reliable allies, but he was still a doctor and his services hadn’t come cheap. The six grand tucked into his bag would have covered Griffin for another year before Ash needed to sell another one of Dino’s pretty trinkets, or sell his body to some pervert in a hotel room that smelled like piss. 

While he’d always felt that the ends justified the means, things were… _different_ now. He didn’t want to imagine the moment of realization on Eiji’s face when he’d come back from a trick reeking of sex and cigarettes; the idea made him feel filthier than it used to, as though he would end up defiling Eiji by association. 

He hated that a tiny part of him felt a relief at the realization that he’d never need to do it again.

“We needed a plan. Figured I’d just do it myself rather than leave it to you geezers,” Ash answered tartly, bracing himself for Max to pick his decisions apart with the familiar “older and wiser” bullshit. He could tell from the way Max’s mouth opened and closed that he was coming up with a dozen rebuttals to his plans. 

To his surprise, Max settled for running a hand through his hair with a gruff, defeated sigh. 

“It’s a solid plan - I don’t see a reason to fix what isn’t broken. A lot of those places aren’t cheap…though I guess you already had that all figured out, too.” 

“Money isn’t a problem,” Ash stated firmly. “And before you ask: yes - it’s all cash.” 

Max’s lips set into a thin line for a moment, clearly wanting to ask where the hell he’d come up with several grand in cash. The way his face crinkled briefly into a grimace, there and gone again in the span of seconds, indicated that Max had probably made an educated guess. 

Mercifully, he simply asked, “Well, what about road maps? What if we get lost?” 

Ash couldn’t help but bark out a laugh. “Jesus christ, are you stuck in the ’80s? Online maps exist, pops. They’d let us know if we need to change routes well before your paper ones.” 

Max grumbled something under his breath that sounded almost like _smartass._ “Alright, your highness. So when and where is our next stop?” 

“Columbus, Ohio,” Ash read off. “It’s about eleven hours away from here, but there’s a spot there that I think Eiji ‘n Ibe might like. If nothing else, they’d get to see a change of scenery instead of nothing but concrete or damn cornfields all over the place.” 

Peering over Ash’s shoulder, Shorter wondered aloud, “The Conservatory, huh? From what I hear, they got a bunch of rare plants ‘n shit over there.” 

“That’s generally what _botanical_ means,” Ash quipped, to which Shorter bopped him lightly on the head in repayment for smacking him on the shoulder earlier.   

Eiji’s warm fragrance announced his approach moments before he, too, peered over the blonde’s other shoulder to look at his phone. Ash tried - and failed, judging from Shorter’s raised eyebrow - not to take too deep of a breath to relish the way Eiji’s scent wrapped around him like an embrace. 

An earthy, enticing mixture of patchouli and sweet orange, Ash was reminded of the squatters he’d lived with briefly as a five-foot-nothing street urchin, charitable with their food and blissfully stoned out of their minds. While Ash found it nostalgic and pleasant, it went against his expectation that Eiji would favor crisper, cleaner scents. He’d remarked offhandedly that Eiji smelled like a damn hippie, intending to make him sputter with embarrassment. Instead, given the gap in his knowledge of what Ash was implying, Eiji’s reasoning had been charming in its simplicity:  “They are peaceful and friendly people; I don’t think it is a bad association to have. That, and I like the rising sun on the bottle - it reminds me of home.” 

He hadn’t had a proper retort to that one. 

“They have a bonsai exhibit?” Eiji asked, the interest in his voice unmistakable. “Ooooooh, and look at that! A light display - that would be nice for photos.” 

“That’s the point,” Max stage-whispered. “He's tryin' to impress you.”

“Oh, fuck off,” Ash spat out, trying to ignore the way his cheeks suddenly felt like they on fire under both Shorter’s and Max’s twin smirks. 

Before he could murder the both of them, however, Eiji hopped from the bed of the truck, nimble as a cat. He answered with a smile, “Thank you, Ash. I think it is a wonderful idea.” 

_Oh, god. He's giving me that look again._

It was what Ash mentally referred to as Eiji's Lethal Look: that sweet, angelic smile that reduced Ash to a slack-jawed idiot, as if he'd been smacked on the head with a two-by-four. He categorically refused to ponder the reason  _why_ too deeply. He would have hated how much it affected him had he not known that it was completely unintentional - bless his dumb heart, Eiji was oblivious to the effect he had on people. 

However, others sure as hell weren't. 

“Dude, you’ve got it _bad_ ,” Shorter murmured in Ash’s ear, much too quiet for Eiji to hear as the latter made his way through the parking lot. He looked over his shoulder, waving a hand towards Ash and piped up, “Come with me. We need to be sure Ibe- _san_ got you the right thing.” 

Ash let out a huff of faux irritation, shrugging Shorter’s hand off his shoulder while privately grateful for the chance to avoid the inevitable taunting. He followed after Eiji like a shadow, catching up quickly with his longer stride as they both made their way through the automatic doors of the store. It was a tiny building, so Eiji’s voice carried easily as he started rattling off rapid-fire questions in Japanese across the cramped aisles. 

Listening to them was oddly fascinating, as Eiji’s end of the conversation sounded like a lingual mosaic - he definitely favored loan words compared to Shunichi, which Ash could only assume was an age thing. Even Shorter, perfectly bilingual as he was, peppered his Chinese with far more English than his sister. Eiji seemed to be asking him irritably about what was taking him so long - Ash thought he caught a few snack brands mingled with his mild scolding. However, the irritation was gone as quickly as it came, his voice pitching higher as he dove into a new topic. Ash heard the rare word he did know in Eiji’s language, _hana -_ “flower” - so he assumed that Eiji was probably telling Shunichi about the next stop in their trip. 

Shunichi looked up from the pile of snacks in his arms and met Ash’s gaze as Eiji continued speaking blithely; it was so unnervingly…  _knowing_ that Ash felt as though the man were pulling a cover off something he’d kept carefully tucked away. The older man glanced at Eiji as the boy babbled on wistfully about god knew what, the look soft in a way that Ash understood all too well. 

Eiji had that effect on people. 

“It’s a good idea,” Shunichi said simply, tucking a wadded bill in Eiji’s fist before he dumped the pile of snacks unceremoniously into his arms. Eiji let out an indignant cry, to which Shunichi patted his fluffy hair condescendingly and said, “Help this slow _jii-san_ ” - Ash recognized it as one of the words Eiji had thrown at the man earlier - “and pay for this, why don’t you? You’re the one always telling Ash to respect his elders. The sooner you pay for this, the sooner we can see the flowers and get some pictures.” 

Eiji threw Shunichi a sour look and turned on his heel, marching towards the counter with the bravado of a petulant child. Ash couldn’t help the giggle that escaped, to which Eiji muttered something under his breath and stomped faster towards the poor cashier watching the entire exchange. 

Looking back at Shunichi, he saw that the man’s eyes were crinkled with a fond, warm smile. It was something Ash would have anticipated from a particularly proud uncle or an older brother - a far cry from than the detached concern of a man dragging along a protege for a photojournalism trip. Not for the first time, he speculated on the possible history behind those two that gave such familiar nuance to their conversations. 

“That was very kind of you,” Shunichi mused. “He does like the city, but he grew up in nature and - though he won't say so - I think he does miss it. He is a bit.... greedy, he cannot settle for one thing."

Shunichi’s head tipped to the side thoughtfully, a perfect mirror of the way Eiji did so earlier. Ash wondered if they picked up the gesture from one another.

"Hmmm.... no, I don't think 'greed' is the word, but rather he craves _balance_ : happiness with bleakness, beautiful things found in ugliness, darkness and light. He loves both, he seeks both. Duality fascinates Ei- _chan_ more than anything.” 

The man's gaze shifted over to Ash appraisingly; there was something in the way his pitch-black eyes bored into him that made Ash feel rooted to the spot, unable to move away. Unable to even _look_ away. 

“ _You_ , I think, fascinate him most of all.” 

**Author's Note:**

> I LOVE this series with all of my heart; I was an emotional train wreck when I finished reading the manga. I immediately went about ways to heal my soul, and give these boys (and the two Sad Dads) some scraps of well-earned happiness. What started off as a half-baked idea of detailing their summer in Cape Cod as an excuse to write some soft moments and fun headcanons.... exploded. It went from the Cape Code Interlude into the full trip, and basically became twelve pages' worth of planning a cross-country road trip, down to precise hotel reservations and travel times because I'm a slut for accuracy. 
> 
> Regarding Eiji's mannerisms and speech: though this is set in the anime timeline (meaning Mohawk!Shorter and cellphones), a lot of my characterization of Eiji comes from his _manga_ incarnation. He speaks in broken English in the manga, which would have felt racist to replicate; instead, I've tweaked it to the careful, precise diction most of us tend to have if we're speaking a language we're not fluent in. He's also far cheekier in the manga and sassy as hell, which is a delight. 
> 
> Hopefully, this will be as healing for you guys to read as it has been for me to plan and write. ♥


End file.
